Blog Archives

Recent Change of Edible Bird’s Nest Trade in Sarawak: The Introduction of New Method and Sustainable Collection Tetsu Ichikawa (Department of Tourism, Rikkyo University) Introduction The purpose of this paper is to report and analyze on the transformation process of the edible bird’s nest trade in Sarawak, Malaysia. Recently the edible bird’s nest trade has been booming in Malaysia (e.g. Lim & Earl of Cranbrook 2002, Voon 2012, Chew 2013). This influx in trade is influenced by factors including: the Chinese food culture, the Chinese perception of health, the ecological knowledge of local people, and the multi-ethnic network in this area. These characteristics are significant in the trade of edible […]

UNIMAS-Kyoto Seminar January 24, 2011 at CSEAS, Kyoto University Two researchers from the Institute for East Asian Studies, University of Malaysia Sarawak visited Kyoto University and gave lectures in the “UNIMAS-Kyoto Seminar.” Dr. Daniel Chew is an eminent historian in Sarawak, who focused on Chinese identity during colonial times. Mr. Jayl Langub, an anthropologist, has an intimate knowledge of indigenous peoples in Sarawak. He talked about the relationships between nomadic hunter-gatherers and longhouse residents through a traditional trading system. We found that the interests of both speakers are closely related to the focus of our research project, and anticipate working together to accelerate the research in Kemena and Jelalong regions. […]

Kemena-Jelalong river: Ethno-linguistic view of an ecosystem in transformation Nathan Badenoch（CSEAS, Kyoto University） The profound changes underway in the landscape mosaic of the Kemena-Jelalong watershed are representative of the fast-paced, resource-intensive development trajectory of Sarawak. The upper watershed areas (ulu) are being opened up to new forces of change, as logging roads are constructed to facilitate the movement of natural resources. Improved access means that industrial plantations (acacia, oilpalm) and new forms of market-oriented smallholder agricultural production (oilpalm, pepper) are securing a place in the landscape as well. The rapid pace of change has implications for both the natural and human diversity of these landscapes. Although transportation and communications have […]

Characteristics of our research region For our project we selected areas along the Kemena and Tatau rivers in the Bintulu district of Sarawak, Malaysia. In these areas, we can observe natural forests, logged forests, secondary forests, shifting cultivation fields, and pepper fields all of which are common in many regions of Sarawak. But our research regions have, in addition to that, large-scale oil palm plantations and planted forests of acacia. Today, oil palm is largely cultivated among the small farmers in this area. This region provides a wide variety of vegetation on a watershed scale and it is truly remarkable from the aspect of landscape ecology. This region’s heterogeneous landscape […]